February 7, 2006

CounterPunch just published an essay by Paul Craig Roberts, a Reagan Administration acolyte, that is as much of a barn burner as anything published by the usual suspects on our side as I've seen:

We have reached a point where the Bush administration is determined to
totally eclipse the people. Bewitched by neoconservatives and lustful for
power, the Bush administration and the Republican Party are aligning
themselves firmly against the American people. Their first victims, of
course, were the true conservatives. Having eliminated internal opposition,
the Bush administration is now using blackmail obtained through illegal
spying on American citizens to silence the media and the opposition party.

Before flinching at my assertion of blackmail, ask yourself why President
Bush refuses to obey the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The purpose
of the FISA court is to ensure that administrations do not spy for partisan
political reasons. The warrant requirement is to ensure that a panel of
independent federal judges hears a legitimate reason for the spying, thus
protecting a president from the temptation to abuse the powers of
government. The only reason for the Bush administration to evade the court
is that the Bush administration had no legitimate reasons for its spying.
This should be obvious even to a naif.

The United States is undergoing a coup against the Constitution, the Bill of
Rights, civil liberties, and democracy itself. The "liberal press" has been
co-opted. As everyone must know by now, the New York Times has totally
failed its First Amendment obligations, allowing Judith Miller to make war
propaganda for the Bush administration, suppressing for an entire year the
news that the Bush administration was illegally spying on American citizens,
and denying coverage to Al Gore's speech that challenged the criminal deeds
of the Bush administration.

Read more at the URL above.

Perhaps Dubya's extremism is going to foster a radical re-alignment of American politics... talk about politics making strange bedfellows, the array of Bush Administration critics grows broader and more diverse every day... it amazes me that, if for no other reason than pure political survival instincts, more of the Republican members of Congress haven't taken pains to distance themselves from the Adminstration, or at least put a heel on its initiatives (although the recent close vote on the budget, a two vote margin, would seem to indicate that at least a few, obviously very few, Republicans are beginning to show concern).

Posted by Thomas Leavitt at February 7, 2006 5:23 PM

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